Visiting Ours
"Visiting Ours" is the fifth episode of the first season of the American television satirical sitcom Arrested Development. It was written by co-executive producer John Levenstein and consulting producer Richard Rosenstock, and directed by Greg Mottola. It originally aired on Fox on December 7, 2003.
The series, narrated by Ron Howard, follows the Bluths, a formerly wealthy, dysfunctional family, who made their money from property development. The Bluth family consists of Michael, his twin sister Lindsay, his older brother Gob, his younger brother Buster, their mother Lucille and father George Sr., as well as Michael's son George Michael, and Lindsay and her husband Tobias' daughter Maeby. In the episode, needing information from George Sr.'s secretary Kitty, Michael attempts to use her crush on Gob to get it. Meanwhile, Tobias and Lindsay attend couples therapy and George Michael attempts to conquer his fear of visiting George Sr. in prison.
Plot
fails to get information about some international accounts from his father, so he goes to George Sr. 's assistant Kitty for the information. Lucille calls Michael saying their club membership has been downgraded and orders him to rectify the situation. Meanwhile, Gob moves into the Bluth Company office, where he plans to write a letter to the prison warden, who has denied the legitimacy of Gob's "escape" from prison. Michael decides to manipulate Kitty's attraction to Gob to get the information he wants.Meanwhile, Lindsay and Tobias prepare for their first marriage therapy session, and Maeby and George Michael decide to follow them, though George Michael is reluctant and instead suggests visiting George Sr. George Michael tells Michael he wants to visit George Sr., and Gob tussles with Kitty while Lindsay and Tobias visit a couples therapist. Michael heads back to the prison with George Michael, but George Sr. is convinced that he is going to die in the prison after a softball game becomes violent and becomes unstable in front of George Michael. Once George Sr. calms down, he tells Michael that he wants Lucille to make a conjugal visit. Lindsay and Tobias play a role-reversal game in therapy with the therapist.
Michael arrives home to find that Gob is repulsed by the idea of his parents sharing a conjugal trailer; Gob tells him that he has had sex with Kitty but didn't get the information. Michael drops by the prison again, this time with his mother, and puts her into one of the conjugal trailers. George Sr. is shocked to see that Kitty is waiting for him in the other trailer, as they have had an affair for years. George Sr. asks for help to keep the affair hidden from Lucille, and Michael calls Gob, who is already at the prison delivering his letter to the warden, to try to stall Kitty. Gob, disgusted at the thought of having sex with her again, opts to sneak out of the trailer. He immediately runs into the warden, who has just read his letter, and is detained and forced against the window of the trailer in which his parents are being intimate.
On the next ''Arrested Development''...
Tobias and Lindsay have another session of therapy, and George Sr. admits to Michael that he "may have committed some light treason."Production
"Visiting Ours" was directed by Greg Mottola and written by co-executive producer John Levenstein and consulting producer Richard Rosenstock. It was Mottola's first directing credit, and Levenstein and Rosenstock's second writing credits. It was the third episode of the ordered season to be filmed after the pilot.Bob Odenkirk, a friend of David Cross, appeared in the episode as Lindsay and Tobias' marriage counselor. Odenkirk and Cross previously collaborated together on the series Mr. Show with Bob and David. Although the shorts appeared before, the episode contains the first acknowledgment of Tobias' "never nude" condition, which causes him to always feel the need to be wearing cut-off shorts and never be fully nude.. The shorts were chosen by costume designer Katie Sparks, who was shopping at Neiman Marcus when she saw a pair of women's cut-offs, with the fact they were intended for women adding to the joke, and so they were added to the series.